Global farmed animal welfare legislation varies enormously — with significant gaps in coverage, enforcement, and ambition between jurisdictions at different levels of economic development.
Global farmed animal welfare legislation is characterized by significant variation that creates welfare inequality for billions of animals based solely on where they are raised. The EU welfare framework — while imperfect in enforcement — sets standards for housing, handling, transport, and slaughter that protect significant aspects of welfare. By contrast, the largest animal-producing countries including the US for poultry, and China for pigs and poultry, have welfare protection frameworks that leave the majority of farmed animals without legal protection during production. Trade agreements that allow welfare-undercutting imports create economic pressure against welfare investment by producers in higher-standard jurisdictions. The international welfare gap is both an animal welfare crisis and a trade policy issue: improving welfare globally requires not just stronger national legislation but trade frameworks that prevent welfare-undercutting imports from driving welfare improvements backward.